Games Inbox: EarthBound, Arkham City, and RalliSport Challenge 2

The morning Inb now ox demands the right to be lazy with difficultly levels, as one reader recalls the day he was robbed by a very discerning burglar. To add your own comments to the Inbox email
gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk.

Ness – you have to believe in him

United frontYou know, having watched a great deal of Japanese animation and played a great many Japanese games, I have come across a common motif in many an end sequence or finale. The ‘we all stand together’ ending as I like to call it. Okami, Shaman King, Princess Mononoke, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, Skies Of Arcadia and even Dragon Quest VIII to some extent all have this kind of resolution.Only when everybody stands united can evil be overcome. And they’re usually quite good at this ending, not one of those examples is too corny or unsatisfying. My question is: where does this come from? Do the Japanese have more of a community spirit than us selfish Westerners?DMRGC:EarthBound was the best at this, one of the best endings ever actually. We wish Nintendo would release it in Europe (even better some sort of Mother compilation).Xbox Live introI’m submitting a post in a similar vein to one also posted last week with the exception that mine concerns Xbox rather than PlayStation.I recently decided to pay for an Xbox Live Gold account and was wondering what GC and the readers regarded as the best online multiplayer experiences on the service. I would tend to favour co-op over competitive play and my skills are average at best, but all suggestions would be considered (although at the moment it is probably too hot to even think about gaming).StanleyScratch (gamertag)Retro discoveriesJust a quick letter of thanks for the suggestions and advice from GC and readers regarding the Japanese shooter Gaiares I picked up from a car boot sale a couple of weeks ago. I managed to get hold of a Mega Drive Game Genie from a friend who had one buried away in their loft. Gaiares works perfectly and it’s a pretty decent shooter. Nice bold graphics with loads of layers of parallax, huge bosses and really great music.The opening track for the first level where your ships blasts off from base is especially good. I don’t know if it’s my old hands slowing me down but the game is rock hard, I can’t get past the third stage at the moment. Gun Lord looks fantastic, watching the video brings back misty eyed Amiga memories. It’s a shame the obviously talented team behind it decided to make the game for the Dreamcast rather than going for the much larger audience of releasing it as a download game for one of the current consoles or the PC.PE

The right to be lazyAfter reading Matt Kirk saying that games should be played at higher difficulty levels with the statement ‘no one on these pages should be playing a game on the standard default of medium from the start. You won’t play the game on this setting and you will ruin the first run through,’ I’d like to respectfully disagree. Firstly it presupposes we are all going to play through games more than once – which is not always true – and secondly not everyone has the same ability level and therefore variable difficulty is mostly appropriate.From a personal perspective, for many years I’d play every game on its highest difficulty including the likes of Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe, God Hand and Ninja Gaiden. I’m sure most would agree these games are not easy even at the normal level. The reason being that I so thoroughly enjoyed the gameplay that as the credits rolled I just wanted to carry on playing them, the higher difficulties made this possible and worthwhile. It’s now quite rare for me to do it, partly because of time constraints but also because of the plethora of other games to play make it impractical. Mainly though, it just stopped being enjoyable to do so, It all became a bit of a slog and some sort of self-imposed obligation to prove that no level of difficulty was beyond my reach.Laziness is now also a consideration and it takes a special game for me to want to bother to do it – Bayonetta being the only one this generation which has qualified as such. Now I’ll just meander through games and enjoy playing them that way. I’ll sometimes stand around admiring the scenery and artistry on display, absorbing it all in some kind of Zen like reverie, it can be quite cathartic after a long day (I did this a lot in Dead Space 2 but I’m weird that way).Surely though, it’s the prerogative of the player to decide to play a game on easy, medium or hard. So Matt, if you enjoy the challenge of greater difficulty power to you mate, It all seems like far too much hard work to me now.Mr Verbosity.PS: Don’t call me Shirley.

Bargain and a wishFirst of all just a heads-up on some bargain prices that may be of interest: Dark Souls day one edition (with artbook and soundtrack CD) £16.85 from ShopTo.Net. Rage (standard edition) £7.85, Binary Domain (ditto) £9.95 and finally DiRT 3 (complete edition) £14.95, all from Zavvi.com.Now can I be a little bit selfish and invoke some of that Inbox hoodoo and ask DICE for a HD update of the great Rallisport Challenge 2. Used to love that game, one of the most fun and content rich (all on the disk, as it should be) rally games from the last gen.presidentweevil (gamertag)A discerning burglarWith recent discussion I thought I’d share a story of mine with equal laughter and devastation. It was around the time that Super Mario Galaxy 2 had been released. I’d hit around the 100 stars and came home from work determined to collect all the stars that evening. As I came home my housemate was upstairs on Xbox so I thought, ‘Great my Wii is on main TV so I can crack on’. I switched on the TV, sat down and picked up the Wiimote.After pressing the on button on the remote nothing happened, just a blank screen. I checked the batteries, everything was fine – so tried again and nothing. I then thought that maybe I should check the wires at the back so pulled the TV out and everything was there plugged in as normal. Getting frustrated now I sat down again and tried the remote again and still nothing. This time I thought I’ll just switch it on at the console and as went under the TV to my surprise there was no Wii.I shouted up to my housemate, ‘Where’s my Wii?’ to which he came down wondering what on earth I was on about. It turned out that during the time my housemate was up stairs someone had come in and just taken my Wii console and Mario Galaxy 2 which was inside and must have been disturbed as my pile of games and controllers were all still there.The incident was so ridiculous I had to laugh about it but was devastated I lost all progress on Mario and my Virtual Console games. All was put right though after my girlfriend and guilt ridden housemate helped replace them and it was pure joy to enjoy that gem of a game again.Terror4mer

Teething problemsWith the new consoles from Sony and Microsoft expected to be shown off at some point next year is anyone else thinking that the first models will probably have a fairly high failure rate? Microsoft never really solved the problem with the Xbox 360 overheating and with considerably improved graphics promised by both companies that’s going to be a lot of extra strain on the hardware.In this respect Nintendo might have got it right with the Wii U, making sure that the new consoles are stable. Ideally the majority of gamers would just like to buy a new console based solely on the games available for that system but as more advanced technology unfortunately brings more problems I think the potential longevity of a consoles life may have a greater impact on picking one than ever before. Does anyone else agree with this?Mr BumpPS: Just got Deadly Premonition – York may be the best video game character ever written, right Zach?100% successfulVery rarely has a game compelled me to strive for a 100% completion rate like Batman: Arkham City has, it’s so ingratiating and one of the most balanced and refined games I’ve ever played. From the intuitive and dynamic combat, the euphoric sense of mobility and incredibly sophisticated detective and Zelda/Metroid-esque puzzle elements. And the eponymous super open prison is so dense and brimming with character, a great example of a sandbox environment.With such bravura, Rocksteady have come leaps and bounds since the ambitious yet slightly stilted execution of Urban Chaos. Arkham City and its predecessor are the best use of a licence since Astro Boy :Omega Factor and Chronicles Of Riddick: Butcher Bay in my opinion. So what’s next on their plate? How about Bat’s DC comics stablemates, especially Superman. The poor fella, I don’t recall a single decent game starring him since the 8- bit era, unlike Spider-Man, the Bats or even the Hulk. In fact, Superman 64 is one of the worst games ever let alone comic-to-game adaptations. It was so bad that I could of labelled it a survival horror game, it still haunts me till this day.But if any developer could do him justice, Rocksteady would be the obvious candidate surely. Their unprecedented understanding of a comic’s source material and ethos would lend them an auspicious effort, and mind you Superman is a particularly difficult superhero to tackle because of his near invincibility. Bat’s is far from insuperable and that’s what makes his application to gaming so interesting because you have to think carefully about the consequences of being mortal.Alas, I fear that Arkham City has raised the bar for superhero games to such stratospherical heights that other than RockSteady’s own work its contemporaries won’t match its near perfected remit for some time to come. Galvanized GamerPS: Have not seen it yet but it’s a real shame that The Dark Knight Rises is making headlines for the wrong reasons, my heart and condolences go out to those in bereavement of losing loved ones in the shootings.

Inbox also-ransI wonder if any reader can advise on how to access my game saves that I’ve stored on a USB and am now trying to use via a new PlayStation 3 that I’ve just purchased. I’ve installed it onto the hard drive but when loading up any game I simply get the message ‘you cannot load save data that you do not own’! All my hours of work gone up in smoke!SamGreenManGaming.com have a 20% off code for PC downloads at the moment which will expire at midnight on the 2nd of August. The code is GMG20-CVIDE-OGAMETrailbreaker83 (PSN ID)PS: I can’t find your review for the first Darksiders game, is it worth twelve quid? GC:It’s not on the website but we gave it a solid 7/10 at the time.I found this video really interesting . I think it speaks for itself.Rak2012

Every time I hear that David Braben is still in the games industry but not working on Elite IV it breaks my heart.LyleThis week’s Hot TopicThe subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader LeighDappa (PSN ID), who asks if you could live in a video game world which one would it be?Even if it was just for a holiday why would you want to visit there and is it just for the scenery or because of the excitement and danger? What would you do in the game world and what kind of life would you want to lead?Are there any special powers or other perks that your choice would grant you, and are there any downsides to gaining them? Which game world would you absolutely not want to live in and do you think enough is done to make game universes seems like living, breathing places – rather than just vaguely glimpsed backdrops.

E-mail your comments to:gamecentral@ukmetro.co.ukThe small printNew Inbox updates appear twice daily, every weekday morning and afternoon. Letters are used on merit and may be edited for length.You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word 4Player viewer features at any time, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.